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SUSS PSY 369 STUDY UNIT 1: Introduction to Emotion (Conceptualising and…
SUSS PSY 369 STUDY UNIT 1:
Introduction to Emotion
Conceptualising and Defining Emotion
Affect
Affect encompasses the range of feelings that people experience, and this can
include emotions and mood
Emotion
It is a four-part process that involves:
physiological arousal
subjective feelings
cognitive interpretation
behavioural expression.
Emotions are caused by a specific event and are brief, and
usually accompanied by facial expression.
Other various definition
Despite the differences in their definitions, there is a consensus among the theorists that emotions can be defined as processes that involve
responding to the world
around us and
an appraisal process.
Emotion as a felt tendency
Arnold and Gasson defined emotions as the felt tendency towards an object judged suitably, or away from an object judged unsuitable,
reinforced by specific bodily changes
Watson and Clar
Emotion as a link between people and the environment
Barrett and Campos (1987) considered emotions as “bidirectional processes of establishing, maintaining, and/or disrupting significant relationships between an organism and the (external or internal) environment
Emotions as a biological process
To Tooby and Cosmides (1990), “an emotion corresponds to a distinctive system of coordination among the mechanisms that regulate each controllable biological process. That is, each emotional state manifests design features “designed” to solve particular families of adaptive problems, whereby psychological mechanisms assume unique configuration
Mood
Mood is often general and
unclear and lasts longer
, usually for hours or days.
Moods are cognitive in nature and have two main dimensions – positive and negative affect.
Classical Theories of Emotions.
There are three general theories of Emotions:
A. James-Lange Theory
B. Cannon-bard Theory
C. Schater's Two factor Theory.
B. Cannon-bard theory
An emotional feeling and an internal physiological response occur at the same time
One is not the cause of the other, Both results from cognitive appraisal of the situation
Cognitive appraisal of situation
Physiological Arousal (i.e. trembling
increased heart rate)
Emotion (i.e. Fear)
Stimuli (i.e. Snake)
C. Schacter’s Two-Factor Theory
Emotions arise from both cognitive interpretations of the stimulus and physiological arousal.
Stimuli (i.e. Snake)
Physiological arousal
-trembling
-increased heart rate
Cognitive interpretation
“I feel afraid!”
Emotion (i.e. Fear)
A. James-Lange theory
An emotion-provoking stimulus produces a physical response that, in turn, produces an emotion
Stimuli (i.e. Snake)
Physiological Arousal (i.e. trembling
increased heart rate)
Emotion (i.e. Fear)
Contemporary Theories of Emotion
Contemporary emotion theories believe there is more to emotions than the basic theories of emotion
There are other factors that influence the way we experience emotions and they can be roughly categorised as
antecedents (traditional appraisal theories)
biological givens ( evolutionary theories focus)
integration of the emotion experience/ affect programs (psychological constructionists)
Appraisal theories
appraisal theories link emotions to the evaluation of circumstances
The main premise is that
emotions are determined by how a person appraises
his or her circumstances
Psychological obstructionism
Psychological constructionism explains
why different people experience emotions differently
, both within and across individuals
Evolutionary Theories
Emotions have biological bases
An
emotion
can be considered as an evolved psychological mechanism, or
adaptation
The emotions we experience are designed to address adaptive problems:
For example, fear is designed to help us deal with threats
Methods in the Study of Emotion
Research typically measures the following components in emotion:
emotion-triggered physiological responses
subjective emotional responses
emotion-related behaviours.
reliance on survey responses
Self-Reports
Self-report methods are used to get an
individual’s subjective information
about the nature of their emotional experiences,
assumes that people are able and willing to identify their emotions, and truthfully report them
there are some disadvantages
to solely relying on self-reports.
Firstly, because self-reports tend to be non-experimental, researchers are
unable to draw inferences about cause and effect
from such data.
Secondly, they are
subject to different errors and biases
, including participant, memory, and social desirability biases, all of which reduce the validity of the data.
Online reports
online reports, such as experience sampling method (ESM) or ecological momentary assessment, are
considered the most accurate
, as data is collected while participants are functioning and living within their
natural life settings
.
It involves random moment surveys, where participants are prompted several times throughout the day to record their current location, activity, and how they feel.
Diary studies and the day reconstruction method
In diary studies, participants
record significant events
that happened at the end of each day and how they feel, over periods ranging from one to three weeks.
Similarly, participants of the day reconstruction method are required to
construct a diary of the previous day, using a sequence of episodes
. Their account ought to include a description of each event and the emotions they experienced.
Retrospective, prospective, and hypothetical self-reports
There are also retrospective, prospective, and hypothetical self-reports
Retrospective
reports require participants to recall and evaluate their
past experiences
and feelings.
prospective
reports require them to
predict future emotions
, such as predicting how they would feel during an upcoming holiday
Participants in
hypothetical self-report
studies are typically asked to
estimate their own emotional reactions
to specific imagined situations. For example, participants may be asked to estimate their responses to a hypothetical disaster.
Objective Measurements
Generally, objective measurements in emotion focus on
quantifying activity in the central nervous/autonomic nervous system
Objective measures rule out response bias and can detect short-term changes that cannot
be captured by other methods (High-internal validity)
Disadvantage
low ecological/external validity
you will find that such methods tend to be
physically restrictive
(e.g., having to stay still within the fMRI machine) and can be extremely invasive.
Autonomic Nervous System Measurements
Physiological arousa
l i.e. physiological changes such as respiratory and cardiovascular accelerations, and muscle contractions, is one of the
key indicators of emotional experience
physiological arousal is believed to be
reflected in
automatic emotional responses through
heightened or declined ANS activity
skin conductance or electrodermal activity, has been shown to be a good indicator of physiological arousal as skin conducts electricity better when stimuli are physiologically arousing.
Strong emotions such as embarrassment and fear have been shown to be associated with elevated skin conductance levels.
Central Nervous System Measurements
CNS Measurement focuses on
brain activity
and attempts to
correlate it with emotional experiences.
One common way of measuring the central nervous system (CNS) activity is t
hrough electroencephalography (EEG)
, which reflects the electrical signals in the brain
CNS responses can also be measured by
neuroimaging techniques
(fMRI/PET)
assume that greater activation of a brain region is associated with greater blood flow, which translates into higher activity of the signal measured
Facial Recognition
The Facial Action Coding Scheme (FACS) systematically categorises facial behaviours based on the muscles that produce them.
FACS assesses changes in facial muscle movements that are broken down into 44 action units and associates such facial expression with specific emotions.
Inducing Emotion
In the study of emotion, mood induction is often involved, particularly when physiological measures and observer methods are employed.
There are standardised stimulus materials and procedures used for eliciting emotions.
For example, affective pictures in International Affective Picture System.
Biology of Emotion
Roles of the Somatic and Autonomic Nervous System in Emotion
Autonomic nervous system
autonomic nervous system innervates
smooth muscles
, such as the heart, and glands
Autonomic Specificity of Emotion
research evidence indicated that there is
some degree of autonomic specificity
in emotion.
For example, meta-analytical studies confirmed that there was
greater heart rate acceleration associated with anger
and fear than with disgust.
However, they found that fear was not associated with greater increases in skin conductance level as compared to other emotions
evidence indicates that
negative emotions
are associated with
stronger autonomic responses
than positive emotions.
Somatic Nervous System
The somatic nervous system innervates
skeletal muscles
such as facial muscles
Emotion and the Somatic Nervous
System researchers propose that
different patterns of action
can
produce distinct emotions
Frijda (1986) proposed that action readiness, the
tendency to act
in a certain way in response to environmental events or stimuli,
is the essence of an emotion
.
This means that different states or dimensions of action readiness correspond to different emotions.
For example,
positive emotions
, such as joy and enthusiasm,
relate to the exuberant dimension of action readiness
, hence the idiom “jump for joy”
Brain Mechanisms of Emotion
The parts of the brain that are closely related to emotion are the
frontal lobes
and the
limbic system
.
Hemispheric specialisation of emotion
There is hemispheric specialisation of emotions.
Emotional processing
is primarily associated with the
right side of the cortex
patients with damage to the right side of the cortex are unable to recognise emotional expressions
Neural circuitry of emotion
first proposed by Papez (1937) and
extended by MacLean (1993)
This theory emphasises the role of the limbic system in emotion
Activation of
different regions
of the limbic system can
induce approach or avoidance tendencies
, consequently
generating different emotions
Hypothalamus
The hypothalamus
regulates
the functioning of the
autonomic nervous system
, which in turn generates various emotional responses via different patterns of autonomic reactions to stimuli (e.g., i
ncrease or decrease in heart rate, vasoconstriction
).
Amygdala
The amygdala is responsible for the
appraisal of emotions
(LeDoux, 1993), and evaluates events and assigns emotional significance to them.
it is
not directly responsible
for the
experience of emotions
Prefrontal cortex
The prefrontal cortex is considered as the centre of
executive control
It plays an important role in
regulation of emotion
The classic example of Phineas Gage’s brain injury illustrates the important function of the frontal lobes in emotion regulation. An accident resulted in a severe injury to his left frontal cortex and possible damage to his right frontal cortex.
Although his language ability and motor skills were intact
, Gage
reflecetd drastic changes to his personality after recovery
.
His social behaviour was inappropriate and he was
unable to regulate his emotions or engage in long-term planning
.
These changes suggest that the damaged regions of his brain were responsible for higher executive functions such as emotion regulation, impulse control, and decision-making.
Neurotransmitters, Neuromodulators, and Hormones in
Emotion
Neurotransmitter
Neurotransmitters are biochemical substances which
carries information
from the sensory cortex to various parts of the brain
released into the synapses of nerve cells, where they** either
activate or inhibit** the receiving neuron or muscle fibre
Types of neurotransmitters
Dopamine,
Dopamine is responsible for
positive
emotions such as pleasure.
It is activated in response to a
pleasurable experience
.
Have been proven to affect decision making and is
associated with addictive behaviours
Serotonin
Low levels of serotonin are
related to depression
Neuromodulators
Unlike transmitter substances, neuromodulators do not directly affect other neurons.
Instead, they
act by affecting the effectiveness of transmitter substances
Example
oxytocin
oxytoxin is a hormone produced in the hypothalamus which acts primarily as a neuromodulator.
There are correlations between the release of
oxytocin and emotions such as warmth,
love, and trust.
Hormones
Hormones are
chemicals carried in the blood
from one region of our body to another.
As such, their effects last longer than those of transmitter substances and they affect a range of functions
Specific
hormones
have a
role in emotional responses
.
For example, epinephrine or adrenaline, which is secreted by the adrenal glands, is released by the experience of strong emotions such as fear or anger. It is also triggered in response to stress; adrenaline prepares our body to deal with stress by increasing our heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration.